1. Technical Field
The present invention relates in general to orthopaedic protections and supports and in particular to orthopaedic implements for immobilizing the thumb of a hand.
2. Description of Related Art
Commonly, when the thumb of a hand must be immobilized, for example during therapies for curing injuries or fractures or during post-surgery recovery, it is a common medical practice to apply a plaster casting around the wrist and thumb articulations in order to keep the thumb in a suitably distended position. After a first post-traumatic or post-surgery period that may necessarily require a rigid casting, the therapy may contemplate alternative forms of thumb immobilization to be maintained for a further recovery period and eventually also during the phase of re-habilitation, for re-establishing satisfactory functionality of the interested articulation, in order to prevent risks of accidental stresses that could prejudice the progress of the re-habilitation.
These alternative forms of immobilization of the thumb may, in some cases, substitute the plaster casting itself, for example in case of minor injuries or surgeries.
These alternative orthopaedic supports for immobilizing the thumb of a hand basically includes a modified wrist band to be tightened around the wrist and thumb base generally provided with a special rigid structure generally including a metallic reinforcement core anchored in the wrist band and projecting up to constitute an arcuate projecting arm to which the thumb may be fastened by textile laces commonly provided with Velcro® fastener parts so that the back of the thumb can be securely held against a concave lower surface of the arcuate extension, from which it will remain stably suspended.
These purposely modified wrist bands have the drawback of needingly be produced distinctly for right hands and for left hands, thus requiring a duplication of inventories along the production and commercial distribution line of these articles.
Another drawback is their relative complexity due to the need to form such an arcuate projection rendered substantially rigid by a metal core, in an otherwise common textile structure of a normal wrist band to be worn around the wrist articulation.
The right hand or left hand singularity of the support and its relative structural complexity increase considerably its cost. Moreover, such a special orthopaedic support would remain too awkward to use for the sole wrist articulation.
Moreover, the tightening of the back of the thumb against the lower surface of the rigid arcuate extension tends to cause irritation and pains at points of concentration of the compression on the back of the thumb so tightened against the rigid support.
To these inconveniences and drawbacks of the above discussed known orthopaedic supports for the immobilization of the thumb of a hand, the present applicants have found an extremely simple and effective solution.